Tag Archives: Zuma

South Africans yearned for the ANC’s NEC meeting last weekend to do the right thing. The ANC failed at that puny hurdle either due to loyalty to their leader or the simple reason that they too are captured. Neither did Zuma fall on this sword. Instead he sat impassively at the meeting while his Comrades vilified him. What has not yet been found is incontrovertible evidence of Zuma’s hand in this malfeasance.

What chance is there that the smoking gun will ever be found?

Main picture: Transnet’s new locomotives on which the Gupta’s will receive a commission of R10m per unit

Bereft of options, the guilty are at their most disingenuous, duplicitous and mendacious. Even the guile card is now useless. If they are in a supreme position of power, they are especially dangerous as they can abuse their authority and the levers of powers.

It is instructive to recall that Zuma’s 2016 was an unmitigated disaster. From losing his case in the Constitutional Court to the ANC losing control in three Metros after the local government elections, Zuma has been on the defensive. Then came the most galling of all: an attempted vote of no confidence in his leadership within the NEC.

As he surely will, what will the wounded Zuma do as a counter strike in 2017?

Main picture: South African president Jacob Zuma (2nd R), the man with nine lives, poses for photographs with an assortment of his wives: Sizakele Khumalo (R), Nompumelo Ntuli (L), and Thobeka Mabhija (2-L) after the State of The Nation address in Parliament, in Cape Town, on June 03, 2009. The rest were indisposed.

In hindsight, will the first week of November 2016 represent such a critical moment in South Africa’s fractious history? From a noble ideal to remove the shackles of apartheid from the majority of South African citizens, the ANC has descended into a cesspit of venality, corruption and the abuse of the organs of state for nefarious purposes.

Yet this week has already witnessed the unravelling of implicit and unwavering support for the ANC by even its most ardent stalwarts.

As such, could this month, which commenced so auspiciously for democracy in South Africa, be the advent of a new dawn?

Main picture: South Africa is burning, a metaphor for corruption, malefeasance and the capture of the organ of state

South Africa is being rent asunder. The sound of previous certainties & the ANC’s moral high ground being ground underfoot, permeates discourse. Stories of malfeasance abound, with the drip becoming a torrent. Abuse by the ANC is no longer vented against the “racist unrepentant whites” & the “white opposition” but reserved for their former comrades in arms & ANC Cadres.

As a bystander in this open warfare, it would be a gripping yarn if one were lazing at the spring poolside cogitating the meaning of life, but this is our life, South Africa’s future that is being trashed.

Will this morph into the “new normal” with a dysfunctional state with all the pigs snouting at the trough?

Jacob Zuma’s election by the ANC as President was never going to bode well for South Africa. His rise to being the only candidate to stand against Thabo Mbeki despite two latent but revealing moral flaws – unresolved charges of rape and corruption – was extremely worrisome for clear thinking people. Zuma has revealed himself to be every bit as corrupt and venal as was expected but his seminal decision to fire yet another competent minister, Nhlanhla Nene, and replace him with an incompetent epitomised a man out of his death.

Main picture: Jacob Zuma (2ndR) poses for photographs with his three wives Sizakele Khumalo (R), Nompumelo Ntuli (L), and Thobeka Mabhija (2-L) after the State of The Union AddressContinue reading

Zuma’s decision to banish Nhlanhla Nene to the South African equivalent of the Siberian salt mines is more than reckless. Like a wildly swinging wreaking ball, it destroys everything in its path. The one centre of sane thought and policies within the ANC Administration has always been Finance. It was the voice of common sense & reason in the midst of Zuma’s shambolic management of the South African economy.

Now that too has gone.

Main picture: The regard that Zuma has for South Africa, the one-fingered salute

Instead of the “over-exuberant youth” that the ANC labelled the uncouth ANCYL Leader, Malema has now become enemy #1 for the ANC. The ANC’s true colours are revealed in the spat between itself and the EFF about bringing Parliament into disrepute.

Among the multitude of mendacious traits of the ANC such as having a culture of impunity, is that they define their opponents not as rivals but as the enemy. I contend that it is this milieu that is at the root of such repugnant comments that Malema made whilst head of the ANCYL.

This affliction pervades all political parties contesting this crunch election, but the ANC more than most.

Firstly the ANC. What message is the ANC campaigning on? Its glorious past. By providing South Africa with an inclusive future not comprising disparate races, it has undoubtedly done South Africa a huge service. One can never detract from this momentous achievement but what does South Africa now have: crony capitalism, moral turpitude on a grand scale & ineffective government in most spheres?